SERMO 362
On the Resurrection of the Dead
Proposal: what kind of resurrection of the just will be in the future.
Remembering our promise, we also had appropriate readings from the Gospel and Apostle recited. For whoever among you were present at the previous sermon remembers with us that the question about the resurrection was proposed by us and distributed into a twofold discussion: firstly, to deliberate for those who doubt or even deny whether the resurrection of the dead will happen; and afterwards, as much as we are able, to search according to the Scriptures what kind of life the righteous will have in the future resurrection. Therefore, in the first part, where we treated that the dead will rise, we delayed for so long, as you deigned to remember, that the time to handle the second question ran out, and thus we were compelled to defer it to this day. Therefore, your attention demands what is owed by us, and we recognize the time for delivering it.
Therefore, with a similarly pious intention of the heart, let us beseech the Lord, so that we may discharge our duty fittingly, and you may receive it healthily. For this is, as must be admitted, a greater question: but charity, which is stronger than all difficult questions, we all must serve, so that God, who commanded this, may turn all our difficulties into ease and joy.
Memory of the previous sermon.
You remember that on that day we responded to some who said, as the Apostle rebukes them: "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die," adding and saying: "Evil communications corrupt good manners;" and concluding thus: "Be sober, righteous, and do not sin: for some have ignorance of God; I speak this to your shame." We all have heard these apostolic words and have committed them to heart: and whoever has heard and committed them to heart, let their works show it. For he who hears is like a field receiving the seed of the sower: but he who commits it to heart is like one who breaks the clod and covers what is sown: but he who acts according to what he has heard and committed to heart, he is the one who rises into the harvest and brings forth fruit with patience, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. For him, not fire like chaff, but granaries like for wheat are prepared.
In those very hidden storehouses, in the resurrection of the dead, there is that perpetual blessedness, even that secret of the righteous, to which the Scripture commends them to be received.
We must use images to signify hidden things.
He also mentioned vessels in another place when the Lord Jesus Christ said that the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet, that is, nets; for certain nets are called dragnet. Therefore, He said, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind: which, when it was filled, they drew to shore, and sitting down, collected the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. Our Lord wished to signify that in this way the word of God is now sent to the peoples and nations, as a dragnet is cast into the sea. But now the Christian sacraments gather both good and bad: however, not all those whom the dragnet picks up are also stored in the containers. For the containers are the abodes of the saints and the great hidden things of blessed life, which not all who are called Christians can reach, but those who are called in such a way as to be. The good and the bad fish swim within the dragnet, and the good tolerate the bad until they are separated at the end. It is also said somewhere: "You will hide them in the secret of your face"; for He was speaking of the saints. "You will hide them," He said, "in the secret of your face": that is, where human eyes and mortal thoughts cannot follow; signifying certain secrets that are too hidden, too concealed, which He called in the secret of the face of God. Should it be carnally thought that God has some great face, and in His face there is some bodily receptacle where the saints are to be hidden? You see, brothers, how carnal these things are and should be rejected by the hearts of all the faithful. Therefore, what should be understood by the secret of the face of God, except what is known only to the face of God? When barns are mentioned to signify secrets, and in another place vessels are mentioned; neither are the barns which we know nor the vessels. For if it were something of one kind, the other thing would not be mentioned. But because through the similitudes known to men the unknown things are conveyed as they can be, accept that both terms are used to mean the same secret, both by the name of the barn and of the vessels. But if you ask what kind of secret, listen to the Prophet saying: "You will hide them in the secret of your face."
We sigh with faith for our homeland.
Since these things are so, brothers, we are still wandering in this life, still sighing by faith for that unknown country. And why is it an unknown country, from which we are citizens, if not because, being forgotten by wandering in faraway lands, we have forgotten it so much that we can call our homeland unknown? The Lord Christ expels this forgetfulness from the heart, the king of that same country, coming to the wanderers; and by taking on flesh, his divinity becomes for us the way, so that through the man Christ we may proceed, and remain in the God Christ.
What then, brothers? That secret, which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, with what eloquence can we explain it to you, or with what eye shall we see it? We can sometimes know something, which nevertheless we cannot express: but what we do not know, we can never express. Therefore, since it can happen that if I knew those things, I could not express them to you; how much more difficult will my eloquence be, when even I, brothers, walk with you by faith, not yet by sight? But this I, or even the Apostle himself? For he consoles our ignorance, and builds up faith, saying: "Brothers, I do not reckon myself to have apprehended. But one thing, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling"; wherein he shows himself to be on the way. And in another place: "As long as we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight." And again: "For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for it? But if we hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."
We explain what we believe, not what we know.
Thus, brothers, hear from me a voice which is in the Psalms, pious, humble, gentle, not haughty, not turbulent, not hasty, not rash. For the Psalm says in one place: I believed, therefore I spoke. And the Apostle inserted this testimony and added: And we also believe, therefore we also speak. Do you want me, therefore, to say the things that I know? I am not deceiving you, hear what I believed. Do not despise it, because you hear what I believed: for you hear a truthful confession. But if I were to say: Hear what I know; you would hear a rash presumption. Therefore, brothers, all of us, and, as we believe from the holy scriptures, all also who have lived in the flesh before us, and through whom the Spirit of God speaking distributed to men as much as was sufficient to signify to those on pilgrimage, all of us speak what we believe: but the Lord himself speaks what he knows. What then, if the Lord alone could know of eternal life to come what he spoke; but others following the Lord, because they believed? We find our Lord Jesus Christ himself, knowing what he was speaking, yet not saying it. For he said in one place to his disciples: I have yet many things to say to you; but you cannot bear them now. He, because of their weakness, not because of his difficulty, deferred saying what he knew. But we, because of our common weakness, do not attempt to speak worthily what we know, but explain what we worthily believe, as we can; and you understand as you can. And if perhaps one of you can grasp more than I can say; do not look to the small stream, but run to the most abundant source: for with him is the fountain of life, in whose light we shall see light.
A Christian is not permitted to doubt about the resurrection.
Therefore, since there is a resurrection, we dispute thus, we believe thus, we must believe thus, we speak thus, because we have believed thus, if we are Christians, looking at the power of the Lord’s arm casting down everywhere the pride of the nations, and building this faith so widely throughout the world, as was promised long before it happened: looking at these things, we are built up to believe in those things which we do not yet see, so that we receive the very vision as the reward of faith. Therefore, since it is manifest in our faith that the future resurrection of the dead will occur, and so manifest that anyone who would doubt this would impudently call himself a Christian, it is asked what kind of bodies the saints will have, and what their future life will be like. For it has seemed to many that indeed there will be a resurrection, but only through the souls.
Questions concerning the resurrection are proposed.
Since bodies indeed rise again, there is no need for a long discussion after the previous sermon. However, this kind of question arises: If bodies are to exist, what kind will they be? Will they be of the same kind as now, or of another kind? If of another kind, what kind will it be? If of the same kind, then will they undertake the same works? Because the Lord prescribes differently, because the Apostle teaches differently. For they are not to the same life, not to the same mortal and corruptible deeds that perish and pass away, not to carnal joys, not to carnal consolations. If therefore not to the same, neither to the same kind. If not the same kind, then how will the flesh rise again? However, we have the resurrection of the flesh in the rule of faith, and we are baptized confessing it. And whatever we confess there, we confess from truth and in truth, in which we live and move and are. For in certain temporal and passing deeds, and things that pass and transition, we are instructed towards eternal life. All that has been done, so that we might hear something salutary, so that miracles might happen, so that our Lord might be born, hunger and thirst, be captured, suffer insults, be whipped, crucified, die, be buried, rise again, and ascend into heaven, all have passed; and when they are preached, certain temporal and transient actions of our faith are preached. Do they pass away because they themselves pass away, or do they likewise pass away because they are built through them? Let Your Holiness consider, so that you may see this through a likeness. An architect builds a lasting house through temporary machines. For in this great and vast structure that we see, when it was being built, there were machines that are not here now; because what was built through them is now perfect and stands. So therefore, brothers, something was being built in the Christian faith, and certain temporal mechanisms were perfected. For our Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection has passed; for he does not still rise again: and his ascending into heaven has passed; for he does not still ascend. But the life in which he now lives, where he no longer dies, and death no longer has dominion over him; the same human nature that he deigned to take on, in which to be born, die, and be buried, this has been built, this remains forever. However, the machines through which it was built have passed. For Christ is not always conceived in the virgin womb, nor always born of the Virgin Mary, nor always captured, judged, scourged, crucified, buried. All these are considered machines, so that what remains forever might be built through these machines. However, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is placed in heaven.
Heavenly Jerusalem has its foundation in Christ.
Let your Charity attend to the marvelous building. These earthly buildings indeed press the earth with their weight, and the entire tendency of their weights in this large structure strives towards the earth, and unless held together, it falls downward, where the weight leads. Because it is built on the earth, a foundation is laid beforehand on the earth; so that he who builds may securely construct upon the foundation. Therefore, he places extremely firm masses at the bottom, so that they may adequately bear what is placed above, and the magnitude of the foundation is prepared proportional to the greatness of the building: yet on the earth, as I said, because that which is built above is also certainly placed on the earth. That our Jerusalem is built as a pilgrim in heaven. Therefore, Christ the foundation has gone before us into heaven. For in heaven is our foundation and the head of the Church: for he is called both the foundation and the head, and truly he is so. Because the head of the building is the foundation: for it is not the head where it ends, but where it begins upwards. The summits of earthly buildings are raised, yet they establish the head in the solidness of the earth. Thus the head of the Church has gone before us into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. Just as men work to lay down a foundation by drawing something to stabilize from below, for the security of the upcoming mass in the construction of the future fabric: so through all those things which happened in Christ, being born, growing, being captured, suffering insult, being scourged, crucified, killed, dying, buried, it is as if the mass was drawn to the heavenly foundation.
Therefore, having laid our foundation on high, let us be built upon it. Hear the Apostle: No other foundation, he says, can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
In Christ, life must be built for us so that we avoid the fire of Gehenna.
But what follows? Let each one see how he builds upon the foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. Christ is indeed in heaven, but also in the hearts of believers. If Christ holds the first place, the foundation is rightly placed. Therefore, he who builds should build securely, if he builds gold, silver, precious stones according to the dignity of the foundation. But if he does not build according to the dignity of the foundation, wood, hay, stubble; let him at least hold onto the foundation, and because of those things which he has built, dry and fragile, let him prepare himself for the fire. But if the foundation is, that is, if Christ has obtained the first place in the heart, and worldly things are so loved that they are not preferred to Christ, but rather Christ the Lord is placed over them, to be the foundation holding the first place in the building of the heart: he will suffer loss, he says; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Now is not the time to exhort you, that you would rather build gold, silver, precious stones upon so great and strong a foundation, than wood, hay, stubble: but yet take it briefly said, as if spoken at length and with many words. For we know, brothers, that whoever among you would be imprisoned by the threats of some judge, so as to endure only smoke, would prefer to lose all those things rather than to endure that place. But somehow, when fire is named to be future in the day of judgment, all despise it, and fearing the flames of the hearth, they consider the flame of hell as nothing. What is this hardness? what such great perversity of heart? If at least men were to fear as the Apostle said, through fire, how one fears being burned alive, which happens in a moment, until the sense abandoning the members makes all those flames redundant; nevertheless he would fear, and not do anything that is rightly forbidden, lest he should arrive at that momentary torment.
The resurrection to be hoped for is such as has preceded in Christ.